Look Who's Walking On Four Legs Again

I’m loathe to go off “internet rumors” again for fear that Barstool Sports will pelt me with more of their misogynist crap because they’re real journalists, but it’s the summer and we’re left to feed on scraps. There’s been a lot of chatter the past couple days that the Kane and Toews extensions are close to being polished off. The combined number I’ve seen a few times is 21.8 million for both, or 10.9 for each. The whole debate of whether they have to get the same contract is one for another time, because they’re going to. I haven’t seen what the term would be. I’ve always thought they didn’t have too much incentive to sign a long-term deal. If they both signed for five or six years they could hit free agency in their early 30s and get another payday. But no one would complain if they sign up for life, obviously.

So is that about right? Definitely feels on the high side, but let’s try and find some comps. I suppose when Sidney Crosby has to call Toews to see if it’s ok that he’s the Canadian captain, he’s the first one you think of. Kane and Toews can’t sign the long-term deal to even out the AAV like Crosby did, because the rules of changed. Crosby signed a 12-year, $104 million deal starting last season. It pays him $12 million in salary last year, this upcoming one and the one after that before dropping to $10.9. While it’s fun to say that Toews is better than Crosby and point out he’s got more rings, he isn’t really. Still, Kane and Toews at $10.9 with Crosby at $12 sounds about right. And Crosby drops to that 10.9 figure when he turns 29, just about the end of his peak years, while Toews will be 27, still right in the middle of his peak. Kane will be 26, so you could argue that if Crosby suffers any decline at 30-31 and Kane and Toews maintain their level at 28 and 29, they should be making the same amount of money.

They’ll both make more than Ovechkin, who makes $10 flat. But you’re obviously paying for postseason production and prestige, which Ovie simply can’t boast. And really, it’s hard to know who else to compare them to. Getzlaf and Perry? Their salaries eventually rise to $10 million for Perry and $9.2 for Getzlaf. I think during the regular season you could make an argument their nearly equal players. But again the playoff pedigree comes in, as since their second year Perry and Getzlaf haven’t been past the 2nd round, and haven’t been all that good in the postseason either.

I guess where your eyes hurt is seeing that Kopitar only makes $7.5 his year and next, but you can be sure he’s looking at these contracts and his eyes are probably getting awfully wide.

Where does that leave the Hawks? That 21.8 figure would have them under the cap for next year, that ol’ tagging rule in effect again. But only just. They’d be at $65 and with Saad, Leddy, and Kruger all needing new deals. Something has to give here, it’s kind of a shock that it hasn’t already.

-In other news, Jamie Kompon is leaving to take over as coach and GM of Portland in the WHL. You may rejoice and think the Hawks’ power play has a chance of doing anything in the spring again, but don’t worry that Q will get to hire another stooge of his.

It’s an interesting watch in that the last time Q hired an assistant, that’s where some of the Stan and Q trouble exhibited itself. On good authority, after the 2012 exit to the Coyotes, a lot of players made it clear to Stan they wanted Mike Kitchen launched into the sun. When Stan broached this with the higher ups, McD made it known that the Hawks would have a clear line of authority, in that owner hires GM, GM hires coach, coach hires assistants. Which is how it should be. So Q was allowed to make the change, which led to Mike Haviland’s axing and the hiring of Kompon.

One has to figure that will be the case here. Marc Crawford is a name you might hear, though once you let him in the door he’s probably gunning for Q’s job. Tony Granato might be another, and Pittsburgh’s special teams were always top of the league. John Torchetti could make a return. Maybe even Haviland? I don’t know that it really matters. These aren’t coordinators in football.

The Ombudsman had a suggestion: Hire Olczyk as an assistant and replace Eddie O in the booth with Drew Remenda. That way we all win. Except the Hawks’ power play.

Kompon going makes as happy as Kent Dorfman on the day Delta House got even.

Guest

Oh Boy

jordyhawk

There it is!

jordyhawk

Kompon going makes as happy as Kent Dorfman on the day Delta House got even.

ShotsFired

Eddie O would have to be a complete idiot to leave a cushy job in the booth for both NBC and the Hawks to take a coaching job. He’s got it made. Just sit next to the play by play guy and make inane observations.

Harry Longwood

Agreed. I’m not sure that Morin, Ben F. Smith, etc. would be able to tolerate the incessant “KEEP YOUR STICK ON THE ICE” lectures we viewers constantly get.

lizmcneill

Never mind the kids, how much of that is Toews going to put up with before the Good Canadian Boy persona cracks and unleashes the killer shark robot within?

We can always hope that the salary cap continues to rise exponentially until 2030, which is incidentally the last year the Hawks have to pay Hossa.

birdhead

ha ha sob

TitanTransistor

The problem isn’t that what Toews and Kane are asking for (assuming it ends up around 10.8 or whatever) is unfair… the issue is that the very purpose of the salary cap is ensure that those teams with high-end talent are forced to weaken other areas of their team in order to pay them fairly.

Crosby and Malkin are both paid more than fairly… they’re arguably underpaid. But the fact that they are paid as much as they are has hampered their team’s ability to put a strong supporting cast around them. The same could happen to Hawks. Nobody would argue that Kane and Toews aren’t worth paying 10.8 a piece, but that WILL impact the depth of the team and their ability to compete deep into the playoffs… as intended, creating opportunities for those teams that are play a large percentage of their rosters below value, either because they’re still on ELC, or because they made some smart decisions on a trade or a FA signing.

The Hawks won the cup in 2010 and 2013 by significantly underpaying a lot of players. The Kings did the same in 2012 and – to a lesser extent – in 2014. Keeping high-end talent at fair value will force teams to rebuild around them every few years. That’s the nature of the beast.

wowwowweewoo

I couldn’t agree more. I think we’re almost certainly facing another cap purge situation after this year, which gives the potential for this to be a special year. I think the players might know this could be there last shot all together. I could see Seabs, Sharp, and maybe some others having to be moved because of the Toews and Kane deals. I think we’ll continue being highly competitive, what with a true #1 center, winger and dman, probably more so than the penguins, but we’ll look back at these as the glory days where the hawks were the class of the league.

raditzzzz

get some of them piggies experience this season. although i would start with bicks from the forward corps and seabs from the d.

raditzzzz

*for cap relief.

and no, im not a seabs hater.

Tornsys

Your claim that Pittsburgh’s poor depth is purely attributed to the dollars committed to Crosby and Malkin ignores the part where their prospect base was mostly garbage and you can look directly at Ray Shero going all in, a couple years in a row at trade deadline (everyone thought he was a genius for it) …and then he got shown the door. The ability of the hawks to turnaround and win another cup 2 years later has a ton to do with bringing up prospects and filling holes (Smith, Krueger, Bickell, Leddy etc) . Pitt could not do that, and likely wont for a few more years.
If the Hawks plan on doing it again, it’ll take youth (who are often the guys you refer to as being underpaid, but that’s how RFA works, man) coming up each year to fill in for guys like O.D, Seabs and Sharp as they get shown the door.

lizmcneill

Shouldn’t you be looking at AAV (adjusted to 8 years) as percentage of cap when the deal is signed? (Because listening to Bettman’s cap predictions is not wise, as we have seen).
Malkin 14.7% of cap
Duck boys ~13.5% of cap
Kessel 12.4% of cap
Bergeron’s 6.5M is going to make me burst into tears.

Crosby would have a 13M AAV if the value of his contract was split over 8 years, which is 20% of the cap. If you remove the 3 cheater years at the end, the contract has 95 total value = 11.9 AAV = 18.5% of the cap. Given that’s he’s a generation talent, that’s probably around the upper limit you can pay for one player under the cap.

10.8 would be 15.7% of the cap. 15.2% of the projected 71M cap. so basically they’re saying they’re worth more than any other forwards in the league but Crosby.

MySpoonIsTooBig

Absolutely no way that Haviland comes back as an assistant coach again now that he’s accepted the head coaching gig at Colorado College

Eric Ziselman

Am I the only one who see’s the Champ in the crowd.
Come back Champ, come back.